Hobbit News: Jewsweek "Was JRR Tolkien an Antisemite?"
David Flood
news:Elrp8.13322$2b4.2...@news11-gui.server.ntli.net...
>
> "David Flood" <NOSPAMm...@utvinternet.ie> wrote
>
> > Does it rest simply on his music being preferred by the you-know-who
from
> > the middle part of the last century, and his descendants' involvement
with
> > same German fascists?
>
> I don't remember but I think he was renowned in his writings and
> conversations for being anti-semitic. But I'm no expert
I had no idea he was a writer as well. Was anti-Semitism a major theme of
his, or was it mixed in which such topics as 'Aryan' superiority?
Was he *taken seriously*, in other words; a forerunner of Nazism?
cheers,
David
teepee
"David Flood" <NOSPAMm...@utvinternet.ie> wrote
> I had no idea he was a writer as well. Was anti-Semitism a major
theme of
> his, or was it mixed in which such topics as 'Aryan' superiority?
>
> Was he *taken seriously*, in other words; a forerunner of Nazism?
Dunno really. I've no great knowledge of the subject. I seem to remember
hearing he was quite an articulate preponent of anti-semitism but I
couldn't source that.
tp
David Flood
news:Xns91E55C34BB86bo...@194.179.8.124...
> Susan Cohen <fla...@his.com> wrote in news:3CAA2015...@his.com:
>
> > He write extensivle AGAINST Nazism and its adherents.
>
>
> You are quite right concerning Professor Tolkien, but I would say they
were
> talking about Richard Wagner
Oh shit. Serves me right for not visiting RABT for some time - I had no
idea that the place had become infested with weekend goose-steppers.
And yes, the discussion *was* about Wagner and what appears to be his
unfortunate legacy to later generations :(
Can you perhaps shed some light on this subject?
regards,
David
Josep
@ID-121201.news.dfncis.de:
> And yes, the discussion *was* about Wagner and what appears to be his
> unfortunate legacy to later generations :(
>
> Can you perhaps shed some light on this subject?
I would rather say that Richard Wagner's main legacy to future generations
is his music, and that is not that bad.
Of course, Wagner was a German nationalist - not to be confounded with a -
you know what. I am not saying that he was a nice man - he was not, IMO-,
nor that his political views agreed with mine (they don't) but I do not see
him as the forerunner of that infamous ideology that has caused so much
grief and pain in the world that I do not want even to write its name
Pep
A Tsar Is Born
> And yes, the discussion *was* about Wagner and what appears to be his
> unfortunate legacy to later generations :(
>
> Can you perhaps shed some light on this subject?
You know what W.C. Fields said: A man who hates children and dogs
can't be all bad.
Wagner loved children and dogs.
Also almost anybody's wife, which was probably the safest way to be
promiscuous in those days. (Syphilis was nasty and incurable. The
disease killed Donizetti, Smetana and Delius, after driving the first
two mad. It may also have killed Schubert. A "cure" for it killed
Mozart. Congenital syphilis drove Robert Schumann mad. It may have
made Beethoven deaf. It also drove Nietzsche mad.)
Wagner was an extraordinary man, with extraordinary talents -- this is
a statement beyond credible challenge.
His concept of the psychological underpinnings of music and their
intertwinement with drama altered, forever, the way serious music was
to be appreciated in the European (and Euro-influenced) world -- not
least because his theories and his way of composing inspired film
composition.
His exploration of themes in the forgotten myths of his culture made
them intellectually respectable, inspiring the writings of Freud,
Jung, Nietzsche, Frazer, Eliade, Graves, Campbell and all their
disciples, not to mention Proust, Mann, Joyce and Tolkien. (You don't
have to LIKE an artist to be inspired by him. Tolkien hated what
Wagner did to the Norse myths ... but he got a few ideas from
attending the Ring just the same.)
No one ever knows who will be influenced by his creations; it might be
a genius, it might be a villain. Wagner said a lot of things that must
have sounded creepy in their time (he had an oversize complement of
vices, as well as a couple of virtues), and sound monstrous now when
we know what they led to.
But the music-dramas remain superlative, the music itself is glorious,
his dramatic theories continue to inspire, either by example or in
revulsion to his example.
A one-man whirlwind. We shall not look upon his like again. Probably
just as well.
(It seems perfectly reasonable to me that public performance of his
work remain banned in Israel as long as the last Holocaust survivor
lives there. It doesn't hurt anybody. The CDs can be imported.
Israelis can go abroad to see the operas.)
Parmathule
atsar...@hotmail.com
Öjevind Lång
[snip]
>Wagner was an extraordinary man, with extraordinary talents -- this is
>a statement beyond credible challenge.
>His concept of the psychological underpinnings of music and their
>intertwinement with drama altered, forever, the way serious music was
>to be appreciated in the European (and Euro-influenced) world -- not
>least because his theories and his way of composing inspired film
>composition.
>His exploration of themes in the forgotten myths of his culture made
>them intellectually respectable, inspiring the writings of Freud,
>Jung, Nietzsche, Frazer, Eliade, Graves, Campbell and all their
>disciples, not to mention Proust, Mann, Joyce and Tolkien. (You don't
>have to LIKE an artist to be inspired by him. Tolkien hated what
>Wagner did to the Norse myths ... but he got a few ideas from
>attending the Ring just the same.)
Confronted with the claim that he had been influenced by Wagner's Ring,
Tolkien wrote: "Both rings were round, and there the similarity ends."
Öjevind
AC
<ojevin...@swipnet.se> wrote:
>Confronted with the claim that he had been influenced by Wagner's Ring,
>Tolkien wrote: "Both rings were round, and there the similarity ends."
Yes indeed. It appears that many people are under the illusion that
because both Tolkien and Wagner had a great interest in Northern
European myth and legend, and that Wagner's work had a ring, that
somehow that means that Tolkien was somehow inspired by Wagner. They
are merely two trees dipping into the same water.
---
AaronC
teepee
"AC" <sp...@nospam.com> wrote
> Yes indeed. It appears that many people are under the illusion that
> because both Tolkien and Wagner had a great interest in Northern
> European myth and legend, and that Wagner's work had a ring, that
> somehow that means that Tolkien was somehow inspired by Wagner. They
> are merely two trees dipping into the same water.
Didn't both rings have a corrupting curse that made people crave them to
their ultimate doom? It's been a while so I may have forgotten.
tp
Susan Cohen
David Flood wrote:
> "Josep" <f...@c.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns91E55C34BB86bo...@194.179.8.124...
> > Susan Cohen <fla...@his.com> wrote in news:3CAA2015...@his.com:
> >
> > > He write extensivle AGAINST Nazism and its adherents.
> >
> >
> > You are quite right concerning Professor Tolkien, but I would say they
> were
> > talking about Richard Wagner
My only face-saving grace is that I'm not the only one who
didn't catch this. :-}
Wagner was a vurlent Jew-hater, yes, but he wasn't a
very pleasant person at all....
Susan
Flame of the West
> I would rather say that Richard Wagner's main legacy to future generations
> is his music, and that is not that bad.
Who was it who said that Wagner's music is better than it sounds?
--
-- FotW
Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth.
John W. Leys
>
> Josep wrote:
>
> > I would rather say that Richard Wagner's main legacy to future generations
> > is his music, and that is not that bad.
>
> Who was it who said that Wagner's music is better than it sounds?
>
If I'm not mistaken it was Mark Twain.
--
Shalom!
John W. Leys
"Come on, then, back to Creation. I mustn't waste any more time.
They'll think I've lost control again and put it all down to evolution."
- The Supreme Being
from 'Time Bandits'
BlackMonk
"John W. Leys" <eliya...@jerusalem.zzn.com> wrote in message
news:3CB5FAAE...@jerusalem.zzn.com...
> Flame of the West wrote:
> >
> > Josep wrote:
> >
> > > I would rather say that Richard Wagner's main legacy to future
generations
> > > is his music, and that is not that bad.
> >
> > Who was it who said that Wagner's music is better than it sounds?
> >
>
> If I'm not mistaken it was Mark Twain.
>
I thought it was Oscar Wilde.
John W. Leys
>
> "John W. Leys" <eliya...@jerusalem.zzn.com> wrote in message
> news:3CB5FAAE...@jerusalem.zzn.com...
> > Flame of the West wrote:
> > >
> > > Josep wrote:
> > >
> > > > I would rather say that Richard Wagner's main legacy to future
> generations
> > > > is his music, and that is not that bad.
> > >
> > > Who was it who said that Wagner's music is better than it sounds?
> > >
> >
> > If I'm not mistaken it was Mark Twain.
> >
>
> I thought it was Oscar Wilde.
>
According to the 'Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations' it was said by
Bill Nye and quoted by Twain in his autobiography.
Herzeleide
Wagner operas in Picture of Dorian Gray.)
"BlackMonk" <Blac...@email.msn.com> wrote in message news:<a954ca$d3ck$1...@ID-133514.news.dfncis.de>...
A Tsar Is Born
> Confronted with the claim that he had been influenced by Wagner's Ring,
> Tolkien wrote: "Both rings were round, and there the similarity ends."
>
> Öjevind
I'm sure he wrote that, and he may even have believed it.
But it wasn't true.
In the source material, the Ring is merely magical in that it attracts
gold (like the dwarven rings in Tolkien) and in that it is accursed
when stolen from its original owner, the dwarf Andvari, by Loki.
Volsunga Saga shows the working out of the curse. (I don't believe the
ring exists in Niebelungenlied at all.)
It was Wagner's idea to place the ring at the center of his drama, to
have it bound up with power, with violation of the natural order, with
control of the world, and control of other beings against their will.
He kept the curse, but gave it a new meaning. He also gave it a
companion magical item, the tarnhelm, which could change the wearer's
shape -- and the first shape the first wearer chooses is invisibility.
Tolkien conflated these when he first had Bilbo stumble on the Ring in
The Hobbit. (He even keeps Andvari/Alberich's curse and riverine
habitat for the original -- later revised -- Gollum.)
Later, tinkering around for a sequel, he pounced on the Ring as the
likeliest story-link. But it had to be more significant than it had
seemed in The Hobbit. And, having Wagner's Ring in the back of his
mind (he and Lewis had attended performances of it at Covent Garden,
and every literate human being in Europe knew the story of the opera
back then), he used Wagner's notion of a violation of natural law to
create a Ring of Power that would rule the world. He didn't get this
idea from Norse Sagas, because it doesn't occur in any of them. It
doesn't occur before Wagner, who invented it. Tolkien got it from him,
and a great deal else besides. He constructed a very different fable
around it -- in part because he was a devout Catholic and Wagner was
not a devout Christian of any sort, and in part because Tolkien had
the whole of his Elvish mythology ready-made on which to build his
plot. He did a fantastic job, and he managed to have his characters
destroy the Ring without ending their world.
But YES whatever he said, or you say, Tolkien got the idea of the Ring
of Power from Wagner. Nowhere else.
Parmathule
atsar...@hotmail.com
rand mair fheal
> gold (like the dwarven rings in Tolkien) and in that it is accursed
> when stolen from its original owner, the dwarf Andvari, by Loki.
> Volsunga Saga shows the working out of the curse. (I don't believe the
> ring exists in Niebelungenlied at all.)
wagner didnt write the volsungasaga
or either of the eddas
AC
This appears to be a common misconception. There are a number of
people that seem to believe that Germanic mythology was invented by
Wagner. They can't seem to push back before the 19th century.
---
AaronC
Jay Random
Flame of the West wrote:
> Josep wrote:
>
>
>>I would rather say that Richard Wagner's main legacy to future generations
>>is his music, and that is not that bad.
>>
>
> Who was it who said that Wagner's music is better than it sounds?
My favourite comment on Wagner's music, but unfortunately I've forgotten
who said this:
`I like Wagner, but the music I really enjoy is the sound of a cat
hanging by its tail outside a window and trying to cling to the glass
with its claws.'
I don't _agree_ with that, mind you, but I love the wit.
A Tsar Is Born
So far as I know NOBODY ever said he did.
Wagner DID however create the Ring of Power with its ability to
control people against their will, and the essential violation of the
natural order that went into its creation, leading to the destruction
of much of the Powers that Be in the universe when the Ring was
destroyed.
That's where Tolkien got it.
No one had done it before Wagner, everyone was talking about it due to
the overwhelming cultural influence of Wagner, and Tolkien took it
from him, as surely as Isildur got the Ring from Sauron.
Parmathule
atsar...@hotmail.com
Chris Kern
Born) posted the following:
>But YES whatever he said, or you say, Tolkien got the idea of the Ring
>of Power from Wagner. Nowhere else.
Ridiculous nonsense. Your proof is like a house built out of
toothpicks. Tolkien says he didn't get the ideas from Wagner. To
show him wrong, you *cannot* simply show some tenuous links between
LotR and the Ring operas. The fact that something didn't show up in
the Volsung Saga does not mean that Tolkien copied it from Wagner.
-Chris
Gareth Williams
> Ridiculous nonsense. Your proof is like a house built out of
> toothpicks. Tolkien says he didn't get the ideas from Wagner. To
> show him wrong, you *cannot* simply show some tenuous links between
> LotR and the Ring operas. The fact that something didn't show up in
> the Volsung Saga does not mean that Tolkien copied it from Wagner.
Would my roses be growing as vigorously as they are if I had not
prepared the soil beforehand?
- Also sprach Zarathustra.
--
Kind Regards,
Gareth Williams
Chris Kern
following:
However, Wagner did invent some of the features of the mythology found
in his Ring operas.
-Chris
Gareth Williams
> Ridiculous nonsense. Your proof is like a house built out of
> toothpicks. Tolkien says he didn't get the ideas from Wagner. To
> show him wrong, you *cannot* simply show some tenuous links between
> LotR and the Ring operas. The fact that something didn't show up in
> the Volsung Saga does not mean that Tolkien copied it from Wagner.
Would my roses be growing quite as vigorously as they are if I had not
Gareth Williams
Öjevind Lång
>"?evind L?g" <ojevin...@swipnet.se> wrote in message
news:<AjVr8.252$iB4...@nntpserver.swip.net>...
>> Confronted with the claim that he had been influenced by Wagner's Ring,
>> Tolkien wrote: "Both rings were round, and there the similarity ends."
>>
>> Öjevind
>
>I'm sure he wrote that, and he may even have believed it.
>
>But it wasn't true.
>
>In the source material, the Ring is merely magical in that it attracts
>gold (like the dwarven rings in Tolkien) and in that it is accursed
>when stolen from its original owner, the dwarf Andvari, by Loki.
>Volsunga Saga shows the working out of the curse. (I don't believe the
>ring exists in Niebelungenlied at all.)
Correct - it does not.
>It was Wagner's idea to place the ring at the center of his drama, to
>have it bound up with power, with violation of the natural order, with
>control of the world, and control of other beings against their will.
>He kept the curse, but gave it a new meaning. He also gave it a
>companion magical item, the tarnhelm, which could change the wearer's
>shape -- and the first shape the first wearer chooses is invisibility.
I think you may have a point about a connection between Wagner's Ring and
Tolkien's, but I don't think it goes back as far as "The Hobbit". There (and
most particularly in the first version of the book), the Ring is just a
magical ring that makes you invisible - a standard item in fairy-stories
long before Wagner. It was only later, when writing LotR, that Tolkien hit
upon the idea of making Bilbo's ring central to the story, and then it does
seem likely that he was to some extent influenced by Wagner. One important
difference, however, is that in Wagner's version, the Ring does not make its
bearer evil - it simply brings misfortune to anyone who wears it unless he
is one of the the Nibelungs. Granted, the Nibelungs (the dwarfs Alberich,
Mime and Hagen.) are a rather nasty and malignant crowd, but they are not
exactly metaphysical agents of evil like Sauron. In Wagner, the way to
nullify the evil influence of the Ring is simply to return it to the Rhine
daughters, the original owners of the gold from which Alberich forged the
Ring. As you know, this duly happpens in "Götterdämmerung", the last opera
in the trilogy.
One obvious mythological loanTolkien made is to be found in "The
Silmarillion" - the petty dwarf Mîm and his dealings with Túrin clearly
reflect what takes place between the dwarf Mime and Siegfried. But this
influence could as easily (or easier) come straight from the "Völsunga
Saga", one of the sources used by both Tolkien and Wagner, than from "Der
Ring der Nibelungen". Of course, there are other influences of a similar
kind; for example, the whole story about Túrin and Nienor and his suicide
with the help of a talking sword is straight from the Finnish ´"Kalevala".
>Tolkien conflated these when he first had Bilbo stumble on the Ring in
>The Hobbit. (He even keeps Andvari/Alberich's curse and riverine
>habitat for the original -- later revised -- Gollum.)
As I have already pointed out, this claim is rather exaggerated; and in the
first version of TH, Gollum simply gives the Ring to Bilbo as the prize of a
riddle contest.
>Later, tinkering around for a sequel, he pounced on the Ring as the
>likeliest story-link. But it had to be more significant than it had
>seemed in The Hobbit. And, having Wagner's Ring in the back of his
>mind (he and Lewis had attended performances of it at Covent Garden,
>and every literate human being in Europe knew the story of the opera
>back then), he used Wagner's notion of a violation of natural law to
>create a Ring of Power that would rule the world. He didn't get this
>idea from Norse Sagas, because it doesn't occur in any of them. It
>doesn't occur before Wagner, who invented it. Tolkien got it from him,
>and a great deal else besides. He constructed a very different fable
>around it -- in part because he was a devout Catholic and Wagner was
>not a devout Christian of any sort, and in part because Tolkien had
>the whole of his Elvish mythology ready-made on which to build his
>plot. He did a fantastic job, and he managed to have his characters
>destroy the Ring without ending their world.
>
>But YES whatever he said, or you say, Tolkien got the idea of the Ring
>of Power from Wagner. Nowhere else.
I think you are overstating the case. As you yourself admit, the power of
the Ring has a quite different significance in LotR than in "Das Ring der
Nibelungen". In other words, "the idea" of the Ring is to be found in other
sources (for example Tolkien's Christian convictions) as much as in Wagner.
What he seems to have got from Wagner is the bare idea of "a ring of power",
a ring to rule the world with.
Öjevind Lång
Öjevind Lång
>ke...@grinnell.edu (Chris Kern) writes:
>
>> Ridiculous nonsense. Your proof is like a house built out of
>> toothpicks. Tolkien says he didn't get the ideas from Wagner. To
>> show him wrong, you *cannot* simply show some tenuous links between
>> LotR and the Ring operas. The fact that something didn't show up in
>> the Volsung Saga does not mean that Tolkien copied it from Wagner.
>
>Would my roses be growing as vigorously as they are if I had not
>prepared the soil beforehand?
Are you saying that Wagner's operas are manure?
Öjevind
Gareth Williams
> >Would my roses be growing as vigorously as they are if I had not
> >prepared the soil beforehand?
>
> Are you saying that Wagner's operas are manure?
LOL! But then again, come to think of it, we have in Parsifal:
"Die Wuste schuf er sich zum Wonnegarten"
... hmmm, food for thought.
David Sulger
> Josep wrote:
>
> > I would rather say that Richard Wagner's main legacy to future generations
> > is his music, and that is not that bad.
>
> Who was it who said that Wagner's music is better than it sounds?
Mark Twain.
Chris Kern
Born) posted the following:
>That's where Tolkien got it.
>
>No one had done it before Wagner, everyone was talking about it due to
>the overwhelming cultural influence of Wagner, and Tolkien took it
>from him, as surely as Isildur got the Ring from Sauron.
Interesting for you to be so sure of that, despite Tolkien's specific
statement to the contrary, and any lack of evidence supporting this.
-Chris
Laura E. Czeschick
"A Tsar Is Born" <atsar...@hotmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:d4f8c75b.02041...@posting.google.com...
> "?evind L?g" <ojevin...@swipnet.se> wrote in message
news:<AjVr8.252$iB4...@nntpserver.swip.net>...
> > Confronted with the claim that he had been influenced by Wagner's Ring,
> > Tolkien wrote: "Both rings were round, and there the similarity ends."
> >
> > Öjevind
>
> I'm sure he wrote that, and he may even have believed it.
>
> But it wasn't true.
>
> In the source material, the Ring is merely magical in that it attracts
> gold (like the dwarven rings in Tolkien) and in that it is accursed
> when stolen from its original owner, the dwarf Andvari, by Loki.
> Volsunga Saga shows the working out of the curse. (I don't believe the
> ring exists in Niebelungenlied at all.)
AFAIR Loki's theft of the ring from dwarf Andvari and Andvari's curse of the
ring to bring disaster over its owner is part of the fragmentary northern
(scandinavian) Nibelung SAGA.
The NibelungenLIED is a different affair, a complete literary work written
in alliterating rhymes about 1200 in medieval German by one anonymous
author. (Saga and Lied have overlapping motives, but not many, and the Lied
is a far more coherent work. Wagner makes use of both of this sources.)
There is a ring, too, but of no magical properties; Sigfrieds steals this
ring (and belt) from Brünhild when he rapes her under the disguise of her
husband Gunther. Later Brünhild learns about the betrayal, and ring and belt
are of evidential value against Sigfried.
> It was Wagner's idea to place the ring at the center of his drama, to
> have it bound up with power, with violation of the natural order, with
> control of the world, and control of other beings against their will.
> He kept the curse, but gave it a new meaning. He also gave it a
> companion magical item, the tarnhelm, which could change the wearer's
> shape -- and the first shape the first wearer chooses is invisibility.
The tarnhelm is no invention of Wagner, but helps in the Nibelungenlied
Sigfried to deceive Brünhild by changing his shape into Gunther's. Same
motive in Wagner's Ring: the tarnhelm helps to change into another shape
(Alberich changes into a dragon, then into a toad (thus gets caught by the
Gods); later Siegfried changes into Gunther like in the Nibelungenlied.)
(But if you look for a ring that renders invisibility: there is one in
Ariostos "Orlando furioso"; its bearer is Angelica, only she has to remove
it from her finger and put it into her mouth to profit from the ring's
virtue.)
> Tolkien conflated these when he first had Bilbo stumble on the Ring in
> The Hobbit. (He even keeps Andvari/Alberich's curse and riverine
> habitat for the original -- later revised -- Gollum.)
>
> Later, tinkering around for a sequel, he pounced on the Ring as the
> likeliest story-link. But it had to be more significant than it had
> seemed in The Hobbit. And, having Wagner's Ring in the back of his
> mind (he and Lewis had attended performances of it at Covent Garden,
> and every literate human being in Europe knew the story of the opera
> back then), he used Wagner's notion of a violation of natural law to
> create a Ring of Power that would rule the world. He didn't get this
> idea from Norse Sagas, because it doesn't occur in any of them. It
> doesn't occur before Wagner, who invented it.
To be questioned. Rings as a symbol (!) of power in northern Europe date
back as far as the time of migration of the peoples (2nd century pC, date
roughly depending on which region is focus of attention) as can be seen on
reliefs and brakteates. Some centuries later one golden ring of power is
known under the name of Draupnir, in northern mythology belonging to several
gods, but mostly Odin is the bearer of this ring (forged by the dwarves
Frokkr and Sindri), a ring which was not to be worn on a finger, but as an
arm-ring/bangle. (I don't remember if there is any literary evidence that
Draupnir possessed a power in itself or was rather a symbol of the power of
its possessor. Draupnir had one striking capacity, though: every ninth night
9 new rings dropped down from it (hence the name, cf. dripping and
draupnir).) So the association RING - POWER was well established long before
Wagner's time.
Another ring Tolkien will very probably have known:
the legendary Danish king Frotho was such a successful ruler that his reign
became famous for its longlasting peace, series of good harvests, increasing
wealth for everybody, safety and security, that nobody would have taken away
the golden ring that lay on the heathland of Jelling (story of Frotho first
mentioned about 986 in a Skald poem). Doesn't this Frotho sound familiar to
LotR-readers? (Admittedly a ring unlike The One, but ...)
> Tolkien got it from him,
> and a great deal else besides. He constructed a very different fable
> around it -- in part because he was a devout Catholic and Wagner was
> not a devout Christian of any sort, and in part because Tolkien had
> the whole of his Elvish mythology ready-made on which to build his
> plot. He did a fantastic job, and he managed to have his characters
> destroy the Ring without ending their world.
>
> But YES whatever he said, or you say, Tolkien got the idea of the Ring
> of Power from Wagner. Nowhere else.
IMCO that's too radical an opinion. As much as I appreciate Wagner's genius
in interveawing materials from different sources into a coherent story - and
I can easily imagine Tolkien watching Wagner's Ring in Covent Garden, too:
though parallels are obvious, Tolkien did his own studies as regards
mythology, but will have stumbled on the same stuff. Inevitably so.
Kind regards,
Laura
rand mair fheal
> prepared the soil beforehand?
my vigorous rose bush in the front yard was planted by birds
fertlized by their dung
and ignored by me
they also planted the blackberries
all the walnut trees were planted by squirrels
geoffrey kimbrough
> BlackMonk wrote:
> >
> > "John W. Leys" <eliya...@jerusalem.zzn.com> wrote in message
> > news:3CB5FAAE...@jerusalem.zzn.com...
> > > Flame of the West wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Josep wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I would rather say that Richard Wagner's main legacy to future
> > generations
> > > > > is his music, and that is not that bad.
> > > >
> > > > Who was it who said that Wagner's music is better than it sounds?
> > > >
> > >
> > > If I'm not mistaken it was Mark Twain.
> > >
> >
> > I thought it was Oscar Wilde.
> >
>
> According to the 'Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations' it was said by
> Bill Nye and quoted by Twain in his autobiography.
Actually, it was Every Conductor at the end of the performance.
Drosselmeyer
Stan Brown
I don't contend that Wagner invented it out of nothing, but he did
make major changes. For instance, IIRC in traditional myth
Brunnhilde was 100% mortal, daughter of a king (or Burgundy?).
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://oakroadsystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ: http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm
Josep
news:3CB6EC48...@bondwine.ca:
> forgotten who said this:
>
> `I like Wagner, but the music I really enjoy is the sound of a cat
> hanging by its tail outside a window and trying to cling to the glass
> with its claws.'
> I don't _agree_ with that, mind you, but I love the wit.
What about his one:
"Every time I listen to Wagner, I feel the urge to invade Poland"
It is from Woody Allen, and words are most likely not exact
Pep
Laura E. Czeschick
"Stan Brown" <qx1...@bigfoot.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:MPG.172158bf6...@news.odyssey.net...
> I don't contend that Wagner invented it out of nothing, but he did
> make major changes. For instance, IIRC in traditional myth
If you refer to "traditional myth", please make sure not to confound
"NibelungenSAGA" and "NibelungenLIED" as I explained (well, tried to
explain) in my posting yesterday. Furthermore, the German "Nibelungenlied"
was not very "traditional" because it had been lost and forgotten and was
rediscovered only in the 18th century. It is true, though, that fragments of
it had survived on the level of folklore. The anonymous German author of
about 1200 was the first to gather the many fragments of northern tradition,
together with equally fragmentary traditional oral history, and made all
this into a big homogeneous epos, comparable to "Odyssey" or "Orestie"
rather than to its northern more mythological sources.
> Brunnhilde was 100% mortal, daughter of a king (or Burgundy?).
That's Kriemhild, not Brünhild. In the Nibelungenlied Sigfried finds
Brünhild sleeping in her armour, protected by a ring of fire; after he
succeeded to overcome the flames and wake her, she tells him her story, e.g
that in former times she was a valkyrie with Odin, but had been put to sleep
and rendered to mortality by him as a punishment for disobedience. Wagner
revives Brünhild's narration into action in the "Valkyrie". Wagner shifts
the meaning of the medieval Nibelungenlied in that he turns it into a great
picture of mankind being torn between antagonistic powers: greed for wealth
and power on one hand and love on the other hand. Thus, the meaning of the
ring is ambiguous: forged by Alberich as a symbol of power and means to rule
the world, it turns to a symbol of love when Siegfried gives it to Brünhild
(she wears his ring without being aware of its inherent powers which
consequently don't harm her) and back into the ring of power again until it
is returned to the daughters of the Rhine from who Alberich stole the gold
in the beginning.
Though there are many similarities between the ring in Wagner (one ring
only) and the ring of Tolkien (the many rings and The One), I think it would
be more interesting to have a closer look at the differences; even if it
were possible to find evidence that Tolkien got his idea of the ring from
Wagner (which I simply don't know), IMO he included literal sources which
Wagner omitted and thus took a different route to deal with this topic.
Best regards
Laura
Count Menelvagor
> (But if you look for a ring that renders invisibility: there is one in
> Ariostos "Orlando furioso"; its bearer is Angelica, only she has to remove
> it from her finger and put it into her mouth to profit from the ring's
> virtue.)
Ariosto got that ring from Boiardo (the subject of my dissertation,
incidentally). When worn on the finger, it has the additional
property of protecting its wearer from enchantment.
David Flood
news:Xns91EFB095CECA0bo...@194.179.8.156...
> Jay Random <jra...@bondwine.ca> wrote in
> news:3CB6EC48...@bondwine.ca:
> > My favourite comment on Wagner's music, but unfortunately I've
> > forgotten who said this:
> >
> > `I like Wagner, but the music I really enjoy is the sound of a cat
> > hanging by its tail outside a window and trying to cling to the glass
> > with its claws.'
> > I don't _agree_ with that, mind you, but I love the wit.
>
> What about his one:
>
> "Every time I listen to Wagner, I feel the urge to invade Poland"
ROTFLOL!
> It is from Woody Allen, and words are most likely not exact
A classic quote! ;)
D.
Susan Cohen
CPE wrote:
> On 5 Apr 2002 17:58:42 GMT, Josep <f...@c.com> wrote:
>
> >Of course, Wagner was a German nationalist - not to be confounded with a -
> >you know what. I am not saying that he was a nice man - he was not, IMO-,
> >nor that his political views agreed with mine (they don't) but I do not see
> >him as the forerunner of that infamous ideology that has caused so much
> >grief and pain in the world that I do not want even to write its name
>
> Charles Manson was inspired to murder based on a Beatles song. That
> doesn't make the Beatles mass-murderers.
Wagner did, indeed, hate Jews. Then again, he was a little nuts, no?
At any rate, this does not make him respopnsible for the Nazis.
Anyone who thinks so....has a problem.
Susan
rand mair fheal
> At any rate, this does not make him respopnsible for the Nazis.
> Anyone who thinks so....has a problem.
wagner was part of
participated in
and gave expression to
a culture that produce goering and hitler
(necessarily produced?)
the whole german superman mythology and antisemitism
did not spring out of barren soil in 1933
but rasther had been rotting the wood of teh house for a century
since about the time the prussian helped defeat napaleon
wagner was a bigot
and his music stank
and he corrupted the story of niflungs
for his own corrupt political ends
now let loose the dogs of war
Susan Cohen
rand mair fheal wrote:
Like I said, he was not responsible for the Nazis
Susan
AC
Anti-semitism certainly predates Wagner, though he was one of its most
notorious pre-Nazi advocates. It was a part of European culture since
the Middle Ages. Hitler was a man who was very successful at tapping
into what was already there.
---
AaronC
Richard Loeb
"Susan Cohen" <fla...@his.com> wrote in message
news:3CC2DC09...@his.com...
Susan Cohen
Richard Loeb wrote:
> Don't bother responding to that idiot
Yes, but *you* read it, didn;t you?
Someone else who might need to know might read it as well!
(Actually, I am familiar with him - I rarely ever do answer him)
Susan
rand mair fheal
Loeb" <loe...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Don't bother responding to that idiot
dont bother thinking
Paul Abeles
WOW, a sensible response from Susan, I don't believe it.
Maybe there's hope yet.
rand mair fheal
> Richard Loeb wrote:
>
> > Don't bother responding to that idiot
>
> Yes, but *you* read it, didn;t you?
> Someone else who might need to know might read it as well!
> (Actually, I am familiar with him - I rarely ever do answer him)
making the implicit explicit
if you want susans favor things you should not do
demand palestinians be regarded as humans
with all the rights equal to other humans
(even israelis)
demand that israel wants to be considered a civilized country
that it should act like a civilized country
with about six billion other people on the planet
i can live without susans favor